Latin America and the Caribbean

Yamila BÊGNÉ (fiction writer; Argentina), a teacher of creative writing, is the author of three experimental story anthologies, most recently Los Límites del control [Limits of Control] (2017) and a non-fiction writer. A recipient of a 2006 Letters and Illustration award from the Ministry of Culture in Buenos Aires, in 2017 she attended a CUNY residency on a Néstor Sánchez Grant. She participates courtesy of the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires.

Jacqueline GOLDBERG (poet, fiction writer, essayist, journalist; Venezuela) is the author of six books of prose, 10 children’s books, and 20 volumes of poetry. Her novel Las horas claras [The Clear Hours] received the 2012 prize of Fundación para la Cultura Urbana, was the Venezuelan Booksellers’ Book of the Year, a finalist for the Critic’s Award Novel for 2013, and was re-published in Mexico in 2018. Goldberg frequently speaks at literature and at food festivals. Her participation is made possible by the US Embassy in Caracas.

Adriana BORJA ENRÍQUEZ (fiction writer, poet; Ecuador) works as a psychologist, with a focus on human rights, gender-based violence, and refugee rights. Her short stories and poetry have been widely anthologized in South America and Europe. A winner of the International Poetry and Theater Castello di Duino Competition in 2013 and 2017, she has also received awards from the House of Ecuadorian Culture and elsewhere. Borja Enrìquez participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S.

Pola Oloixarac (Argentina, IWP '10) was named one of Granta’s Best Young Spanish Novelists in 2010, the same year she participated in IWP’s Fall Residency program. Her first novel, Savage Theories, was published in the US in 2017; it has also been translated into French, Dutch, Finnish, Italian and Portuguese. Oloixarac is a founding editor of the Buenos Aires Review, a bilingual literary journal. She currently lives in San Francisco.

Lorna Goodison (Jamaica/USA, IWP '83) is Poet Laureate of Jamaica and among the most celebrated living Caribbean writers. Her 12 books of poetry include the collections I Am Becoming My Mother (1986, Commonwealth Poetry Prize for the Americas) and Oracabessa (2014, OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature). Goodison is the author of three short story collections; From Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her People received the 2007 British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction.

Luis Bravo (Uruguay, IWP '12) has published over a dozen works of poetry in book form and as multimedia projects. His work has been translated into Portuguese, German, Estonian, French, Swedish, English, and Farsi. Bravo's bilingual Spanish-English collection, Liquen/Lichen, came out in 2014. He is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Romance Languages at the University of Notre Dame.

Xavier VILLANOVA (playwright, screenwriter, stage director, actor, translator; Mexico) has had his work staged in Mexico, the US, and Venezuela; in 2011, the Lark Play Development Center in New York workshopped his Acheron: The River of Tragedy. Ocean Blues, co-written by him and based on his eponymous play, is on Netflix. In 2010 he won the National Playwright Award given by the UANL, and received a grant from the Fundación para las Letras Mexicanas.

Subraj SINGH (playwright, fiction writer, journalist, critic; Guyana) teaches at the University of Guyana and the National School of Theatre Arts and Drama, and has a weekly arts column in the Guyana Chronicle. His Rebelle and Other Stories won the 2015 Guyana Prize for Literature as the Best First Book of Fiction; his play “Masque” won the 2016 National Drama Festival Awards for Best New Guyanese Play and Best Production. He participates thanks to the William B. Quarton Fund through the Cedar Rapids Community Foundation.

Santiago GIRALT (playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker, fiction writer; Argentina) writes plays, screenplays, and novels, and directs films. In 2017, he was awarded the National Arts Fund Bi-Centennial Grant in Literature. His first novel, [Nelly R, the General’s Lover], was shortlisted for the 2008 Planeta International Prize; La mala memoria came out in 2015; Disparo is forthcoming.